The Differences In Faith And Abiding Hope

Have you ever heard the phrase “abiding hope?” How about “Faith?” You are probably a lot more familiar with the latter, but have you heard of abiding hope before? What does abiding hope even mean?

As we discuss the differences, let’s start by defining the words starting with “Faith.”

“Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing or a belief not based on proof. It may also refer to a particular system of religious belief.” Dictionary.com

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen

As I was doing research for this article I thought it would be easy to find out what abiding hope meant. I had heard it plenty of times before and thought there would be a lot on this subject. It is a church phrase. But there was not much of anything that I could find.

So the only choice is to start from the ground up. Here are the basic meanings of the words according to dictionary.com and bible.org.

Abide: to remain or continue, to wait for: “to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence.”

Hope: to cherish a desire with anticipation: to desire with expectation of obtainment: to expect with confidence: trust

“Hope” in Scripture means “a strong and confident expectation.” Though archaic today in modern terms, hope is akin to trust and a confident expectation. – https://bible.org/article/hope

So if we were to put the two words together I think the definition would be something close to the following.

Abiding hope is confidently waiting with patience for a future expectation.